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The town of Deerwood was originally named Withington. The settlement of Withington grew around the arrival of the Northern Pacific Railraid in 1872. There is a town in southern Minnesota named Wothington and the two towns were often confused. The settlers solved the problem by naming the town Deerwood…the name chosen because of the white tail deer population that thrived in the area. The area was first surveyed in 1871 and was incorporated on December 3, 1883.

Two of many items of special interest surround the history of Deerwood. One, in 1890, Cuyler Adams was surveying his property around Deerwood with is St. Bernard dog, Una. He noticed that his shadow and the needle of his compass did not point in the same direction. Over and over through the woods he walked, with the same result. He concluded that it was possible that a body of iron ore buried deep under ground could cause the compass to act in the same way. In time, his conclusions were correct. The development of mining and the Cuyuna Range came to be because of Cuyler Adams.

Secondly, a peddler by the name of Charles Wilden stopped by the home of Andrew and Erika Linberg (in the first decade of the 1900’s and was offered an evening meal. Wilden became the subject of the black and white photograph by Erick Enstrom entitled “Grace.”